Rohingya rape survivors

So far this year, 11,432 Rohingya have reached Bangladesh, where more than 700,000 have fled since an August military crackdown in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, Zeid said.

More than 10 months have passed since Myanmars security forces launched a sweeping campaign of rape and other brutalities against the Rohingya, and the babies conceived during those assaults have been born. For many of their mothers, the births have been tinged with fear — not only because the infants are reminders of the horrors they survived, but because their community often views rape as shameful, and bearing a baby conceived by Buddhists as sacrilege.

For the women who became pregnant during last years wave of attacks in Myanmar, to speak the truth is to risk losing everything. Because of that, no one knows how many rape survivors have given birth. But given the vastness of the sexual violence — as documented in an investigation by The Associated Press — relief groups had braced for a spike in deliveries and scores of abandoned babies.

There is a misery spoken only in murmurs. Some ended their pregnancies early by taking cheap abortion pills available throughout the camps. Others agonized over whether to give their unloved babies away. One woman was so worried about her neighbors discovering her pregnancy that she suffered silently through labor in her shelter, stuffing a scarf in her mouth to swallow her screams.

Police have arrested about 300 Rohingya in cases involving killings, robberies and abductions in the camps since the August influx, Tutul said.